A Discourse on the Early Constitutional History of Connecticut: Delivered Before the Connecticut ...

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M[' 7

IlS I i^ jtao. u.

iSjaibart CollEge Itbrarg
1W. Lll. xiMAAvJUiL,

o

A DISCOURSE

ON THE EARLY

COISTITUTIOML HISTOET

\

OF

^ CONNECTICUT,

DEUTERED BEFORE THE

CONNECTICUT HISTORICAL SOCIETY,

Hartford, Uayir, 1843.

BY LEONARD BACON.

Pastor of the First Ohnroh in New Haven.

Published by request of the Soeiety.

HARTFORD.

CASE, TIFFANY & BURNHAM, PRINTERS,

Pearl Mreet, comer of Xrumbull,

1843.

• ?

A '11. ■■/' t .

u. '

y

^t^This discourse having been written only to be delivered in a
public assembly and then to be forgotten, was prepared with less
care in respect to the personal examination of records and original
authorities, than if it had been designed for the press. It is not
without reluctance that tb6 publication has^een consented to, for
the haste with which the copy is sent to the press, forbids that
accural^ revision and tha^t more extended illustration of some par-
ticulars which the author desired to make. An error which might
be tolerated in an oral discourse, is not so easily forgiven when it
appears in print, to be perpetuated.

DISCOURSE.

The end for which this association exists, is to promote a
knowledge of history, and especially the history of our own
State. The means by which it operates are for the most
part of an humble and unimposing character. It consti-
tutes a bond of union for those who love old records, old
books and documents, old customs and traditions ; and by
making such persons* acquainted with each other, and with
each others researches and discoveries, it not only encoura-
ges their zeal but collects and preserves the results ^f their
industry. By its library, and its collection of papers, pic-
tures and other objects connected with the past, it is accu-
mulating the materials which will hereafter aid the labor
of the historian, and guide the genius of the poet and
the painter who shall make a distant posterity acquainted
with their fathers and ours. At the same time, by the
public exhibition of its library and collections, by its publi-
cations, and by these anniversary celebrations, it diffuses
and promotes in the community at large a disposition to
appreciate this kind of knowledge. And I will venture to
suggest that its usefulness might be still further extended,
if it Would undertake to provide courses of popular lectures
on the history of our State, to be repeated in all those citiei
and principal towns which would supply a sufficient audi-
tory.

Were I as much a man of leisure as many other mem-
bers of the Society, I would have endeavored to make a
different preparation for the service which I have been
called to perform this evening. Had it been in my power
to make the requisite investigations, I would have attempt-
ed to illustrate some particular event or crisis in the history
of our time-honored Commonwealth ; or I would have en-
deavored to exhibit the life and services of some of the
illustrious men whose names adorn our annals. But I am
constrained to ask your attention for the present hour to a
theme which requires less of minute and original inquiry,
ajid which may be illustrated chiefly from the most famil-
i^x documents. I propose to offer a few thoughts on the
constitutional history of Connecticut, and particularly du-
ring the period before the charter.

The adventurers who, in the autumn of 1635, pierced
the profound wilderness which then stretched westward
from Boston, and commenced a new settlement in the far
west at Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield, supposed
themselves at first to be within the limits of the colony of
'Massachusetts, as defined, by the letters patent of King
Charles J. The plantations on tlie Connecticut were con-
sidered an out-post or frontier station of Massachusetts ;
and at the beginning, their magistrates acted under the
authority of the government at Boston. Yet, from the
necessity of the case, their affairs were conducted at the
very outset, in some measure, independently of the affairs
of the parent Colony. The three contiguous toiiO'ns, Buried
in the wilderness, and having the same intex^sts and dan-
gers, could not but be a body politic by themselves^ Ac-
cordingly, two magistrates from each of the three towns*

* «

6

formed a Court, which administered justice, and made
whatever orders and regulations were deemed necessary
for the common welfare. This Court was aided in counsel,
on occasions of emergency, by committees from the towns,
who appear to have acted in the capacity of representa-
tives. Under this simple arrangement, the infant republii^ *
was governed for three years. By this Court, the simplicity
of which would have provoked a smile from Jeremy Ben-
tham or the Abbe Sieyes, war was undertaken, heavy taxes
were imposed and collected ; troops were levied and equip-
ped ; and the most powerful Indian nation in New Eng-
land was thoroughly subdued, almost without aid from the
older Colony of Massachusetts, so much more powerful,
and hardly more distant from the scene of conflict.

When it was that the inhabitants of the three towns on
the Connecticut ascertained that they were without the
limits of Massachusetts, we are not informed. But when-
ever the discovery of their independence was made, they
were not in a state of anarchy ; they were already a dis-
tinct, organized political community, and under the forms
which common sense and nature had spontaneously pro- '
duced ; or to speak more religiously, and therefore more
truly and philosophically, under the forms which the provi-
dence of God had already given them, they continued to
manage their little Commonwealth till (l639. In that year,
on the 24th of January,* the first fathers of our State
assembled at Hartford ; not by delegation, but personally,
in^a Ml convention, and framed for themselves a written
constitution or platform of civil government.

This, if I mistake not, is the first example in history of a

* January 14th, Old Style.

written ccuiAlitution, a distmct organic law ; constituting a
government, and defining its powers. The middle ages had
abounded in charters, but they were of the nature of
treaties between people in arms, and the sovereign whom
they acknowledged ; or of grants from the sovereign to a
particular oommunityr) The « Great Charter," as it waa
called, which the English barons wrested from King John,
is not a constitution ; nor is a charter of a city or a borough
what we mean by a constitution. The pilgrims of the
Mayflower, at Cape Cod, when they were about to land in
the wilderness, entered into a formal compact, written out
and subscribed with all their names, ^ combining themselves
into a civil body politic,' by virtue of which covenant, they
were to ' erect, constitute and frame, such just and equal
laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, as should
be thought most convenient for the general good.' But
this was not what we understand by a constitution ; it was
only a voluntary compact, under which any kind of gov-
ernment, from a simple democracy to an absolute dictator-
ship," might have been erected. The instrument framed
at Hartford, on the 24th of January, 1639, is the earliest
precedent of a written constitution, proceeding from a peo-
ple, and in their name establishing and defining a govern-
ment.

The preamble of this instrument,* after stating that it has
pleased God in his providence so to dispose of things that
they, the inhabitants of Windsor, Hartford and Wethers-
field, were then dwelling together on the river Connecticut
and the lands adjoining ; and that to maintain the peace
and union of a people so situated, the word of God requires

* This Constitution may be found in Tcumbull, I. 498.

. '

• ♦

the setting up of an orderly and decent government, es-
tablished according to God, •— proceeds in these terms.
" We do therefore asfiociate and conjoin ourselves to be as
one public State or Commonwealth, and do, for ourselves
and our successors, and such as shall be adjoined to us at
any time hereafter, enter into combination and confederation
together to maintain the liberty and purity of the Gospel
of our Lord Jesus which we now profess," &c., " as also
in our civil affairs to be guided by such laws, rules, orders
and decrees, as shall be made, ordered and decreed, as
foUoweth."

The Constitution thus introduced consists of eleven arti-
cles, and is the germ of the Constitution of Connecticut as
it now exists. Changes have been made from time to time,
as change has been required by the growth and extension
of the State, and by the altered circumstances and opin-
ions of the people ; but the government under which we
now live is the same in its essential features with the gov-
ernment which was established in 1639. From that year
to the present, with the one exception of the period of
nineteen months when the entire Constitution was forcibly
suppressed by Sir Edmund Andros, the representative (^
James II., the government has gone on by annual elections,
condueted in nearly the same forms. Of course, no man
would expect to find in the constitution framed for a little
colony in the woods more than two hundred years ago,
all that accurate distribution and balancing of powers, and
all those details of arrangement, which are now found
necessary in the constitution of a State wi|Lh various inter-
ests,, manufacturing, commercial, agricultural, and with
more than three hundred thousand inhabitants. Yet a few

8

great principles are the essential things in that Constitution
of 1639 ; and the same principles are the most essential
things in our Constitution now. These principles wcefirsty
the State consists of towns, each town regulating, to a
limited extent, its own particular affairs, as a pure demo-
cracy ; secondly^ elections in the State are annual, all pow-
er reverting to the people once in every year; thirdly^
legislation is by the representatives of towns, acting codr-
dinately with another body of men chosen by the people
at large ; fourthly ^ the judicial and executive powers are
distinguished from the legislative, though committed to
the hands of men who have a share in legislation. The
distinction which we now make between the judiciary and
the other branches of the government, was not required
in that infancy of the republic ; and therefore, the judi-
ciary is naturally and safely enough identified with the
executive.

But in order to do justice to the subject in hand, we
must look at the provisions of this constitution of 1639
more in detail. This is necessary in order to appreciate
the progress of our constitutional history.
' 1. The RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE Under the original constitu-
tion of Connecticut, was without any of the conditions by
which it is now limited. Neither the, possession of real
estate, nor the payment of a tax, nor the performance of
military duty, was placed among the qualifications of an
elector. The choice of magistrates was to be " made by
all that are admitted freemen, and have taken the oath of
fidelity, and do cohabit within this jurisdiction, having
been admitted inhabitants by the major part of the town
where they live, or by the major part of such as shall be

then present" — that is, present at the time and place of the
General Election. This was not indeed universal suffrage,
but it was perhaps as near to universal suffrage, in form, as
can be found in the constitution of any state, even in these
days. If the right of voting in elections is made to depend
on complexion, on military service, ou the payment of
taxes, or on the possession of some certain amount of prop-
erty — if it depends on any thing but mere residence at the
time of voting, it is something else than universal suffrage.
In the instance now under consideration, the only limita-
tions were that the voter should have been admitted as an
inhabitant, by a majority in a town meeting, or by a major-
ity of the citizens assembled at the general election ; that he
should have taken a prescribed oath of fidelity to the gov-
ernment ; and that he should be at the time of voting an
actual inhabitant within the jurisdiction. In all the ex-
tension which recent times have given to the right of suf-
frage, we have hardly yet got back to the largeness of this
primitive arrangement.

2. The EXECUTIVE and judicial power of the state was
vested in a governor, and at least six assistant magistrates.
These were to be elected on the second Tuesday of April
annually. No person could be chosen governor who was
not " a member of some approved congregation," or who
had not form^ly been a magistrate within their jurisdiction,
nor could any person be governor oftener than once in two
years. The only qualification for the magistracy was that
the persons chosen should be "freemen' of this common-
wealth,"

3. The ELECTIONS were held in a general assembly of all

the freemen of the colony. In the choice of governor, the

2

10

electors being limited to those who had already been elect-
ed to the magistracy, a plurality of ballots was decisive*
The choice of magistrates proceeded thus. At some pre-
ceding general court, within the year, the names of those
who were to stand as candidates for the magistracy at the
ensuing election, were propounded to the people, for con*
sideration. And this was done, not by a caucus or a party
convention, nor yet by the naore open and straight-forward
method of self nomination ; but each town was invested
with the power of nominating, by its deputies, any two,
and the general court had power to add to the nomination
at its own discretion. Then, in the general assembly of
the freemen, on election day, the secretary first read oflT
the names of all who were to be voted for as magistrates,
that the freemen might see among whom they were to
make their selection. After this, each name was acted
upon distinctly. The voting was not by a " stand-up
law," but by ballot, a paper with any writing upon it
being an affirmative vote, and a blank paper being a nega-
tive vote. Thus every person in the nomination was voted
for in turn ; and every one who had more votqs for him
than against him was elected to the magistracy. It was
provided, however, that if at the close of the election, six
in addition to the governor had not been elected by major-
ities, that number of six should be made up by taking the
one or more for whom the greatest number of votes had
been given.

4. The LEGisLjrruBE consisted of the governor, and his
assistants in the magistracy, together with the deputies or
representatives of the towns. Each of the three towns
then included in the jurisdiction, was empowered to send

• ■

11

four of its freemen as deputies to the general court ; and
the towns that should afterwards be added, were to send
as many deputies as the court should judge meet, regard
^beihg had to the number of freemen in such new towns*
Though the deputies did not at first sit in a separate apart-
ment, for the transaction of ordinary business ; it was pro-
vided that they should meet by themselves before the
commencement of any general court, to judge of their
own elections, and ^^to advise and consult of all such
things as concern the public good."

5. Another remarkable feature of this Constitution, ia
its implied renunciation of the laws of England, the
common law as well as the statute law. The magistrates
were empowered and directed " to administer justice ac-
cording to the laws here established, and for want thereof
according to the word of God.'' This was little less than
a declaration of independence.

Superficial minds havp often sneered at this provision for
the administration of justice, which was adopted at New
Haven as well as here upon the river. But no man that
understands it, can sneer at it. The laws of the country
from which they came, acknowledged a royal government,
surrounded and upheld by feudal institutions, a hereditary
aristocracy, an established prelacy in the church, a pre-
scribed liturgy in worship ; and they had emigrated from
■that country for the purpose of being beyond the reach of
laws which had not been satisfactory to their experience.
Should they permit those laws to foIif)w them into the
wilderness 1 No, they had come hither that they might
frame laws for themselves, in conespondence wiCh their
own wants and their own views of good government ; a^d

13

it was wise for them to determine that no English law-r-
not even the common law, should be law to them without
an express enactment. And to prevent the necessity of
falling back) even temporarily or occasionally, upon the
common law, with all the implications which that might
involve, they directed that in cases for which no express
statute had been enacted, the magistrates should adminis-
ter justice according to the principles of general equity,
laid down in that ^book. which is of universal authority in
Christendom. No small portion of American history from
that day through many ages yet to come, has been deter-
mined by this one feature of primitive New England
legislation.

6. Something must be said respecting the conQection
between this primitive civil constitution, and the fbculiae
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS AND INSTITUTIONS of those who framed
it. The preamble asserts that the object of the constitu-
tion, the end for which the commonwealth is founded, is
" to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the
gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also the
discipline of the churches, which, according to the truth of
said gospel, is now practiced among us." But the only
thing in the Constitution itself, to connect the government
with any particular form of religion, was that provision
which required the governor to be " a member of some ap-
proved congregation within the jurisdiction." Other New,
England colonies permitted none but church members to
ejcercise any political power among them, or even to vote
in the eleotipn of ojficers. This was done under the appre^
hension — ^very natural to them in their circumstances — ^that
in no other way could the end of their migration to thi»

13

country be seemed. But these founders of Connecticut
deemed it enough to get rid of all those laws which either
established or rested upon a different ecclesiastical system,
and then to leave it in the power of the towns to protect,
themselves against intruders, by determining at their own
discretion, whom they would admit to dwell among them
as inhabitants. The planters on the Connecticut were as
fax as the fomiders of Massachusetts, or of New Haven, from
intending that the enemies of the civil and ecclesiastical in-
stitutions which they were founding at such expense of
treasure, of toil, and of life, should find the door wide open
to come in at pleasure, and subvert those institutions. They
however had their own method, and as we judge a wiser
method, of guarding themselves against such invasion.
This peculiarity in the primitive jurisprudence of Connecti-
cut, may be ascribed with much probability to the influence
of John Ha]nae8, whose largeness of views made him supe-
rior to most of hifi cotemporaries, and of Thomas Hooker,
whom his sufferings in his own country and his exile in
Holland, operating on the natural ingenuousness of his
temper, and the kindness of his affections, mighX easily
have taught something of that tolerance which all political
philosophy, save that of Oxford and of Rome, now recog-
nizes as essential to good govemnfent.

7. But we must also notice the remarkable provision by
which this primitive constitution attempted to secure its
gwN PERPETUITY, and to keep the supreme power inalien-
ably in the hcoids of the people. In all ordinary cases,
the General Court, of which there were to be two sessions
annually, was to he cpnvened by the Governor, sending
out a summons to the constables of every town, upon

^hich the constables were to call upon the inhabitants of

b

• 14

eacb town ta elect their representativM; The Govemojp
vas also empowered to conrvlbe aL special session of the
Court on any emexgeney^ with the consent of w majority of
the magistralfiflk Bxxt if thiongb the neglect or refusal of
the Oovemor and luagistrates^ the Qenerad Court should, not
be convoked^ eitfaev at its stated time» of meeting^ or at
other timesy when required by ^^the ocoaaiona of the com*^
Bxonwealth,'^' them the freemen: or the major part of them
might call on die magistracy, by petifikm, to perform their
duty; and if tiuBSt petition should be ineffectual, then the
freemen themselves, or the major part of them, mi^t give
order to the constables of the several towns, which order
dbould have the same validity as. if it proceeded from the
Gbvemor. And the Court thus convened, without a Gov^
ernbr and without magistrates, should consist of the major
part of the freemen present, or of Aeir deputies^ with a^
moderator chosen by them; and. in that, as in any other
General Const, should consist ^^ the suikemk irowsu of the
GOMMoirwSALTir,?' including among other things^ ^< power
to call in question courts, ma^istrntes^ or any other person
whatsoe^rer, and for just cause to displace them or deal
otherwise according to the nature of the offence." Thiis^
if at any time the government should.be destroyed by the
treachery of the magistrates,, or by their being violently
restrained, fall provision was made for its re^organization fit
whatever moment the people should be able to re-assert
their right of self-government.

While the inhabitants of the three towns npon the Con-
necticut were thus framing the organic law of their com-
monwealth, another colony independeixt of them,, richer, in
means if not in men, and with a lofty hope of realizing a
new era of human happiness^ in a. new state of society, of

%

IS

which tbeii; kiufeiB had imned a most ^^ devout imagina'-
ticm,^' had been comiPftiiced within the temUxj which we
now call Connecticat. New Haven, Mil£aid and GuilfcH-d,
had already begun to he planted, though not one of them
had received an English name. Bmnford and Stamford,
and some towns upon Long Island, were ere long added to
that independent jurisdiction. There the foundations of
government were first laid with great deliberation and
solemnity, in eatch separate town. New Haven, as a town
merely, bef<»'e it sustained any definite political relation to
its sister towns upon the right and left, deemed itself a corn-
pletjB and perfect sovere^ty, with no superior but God, and
conducted itself accordingly. When the planters of New*
Haven came to that place in 1638, they first bound them-
selves by a ^' plantation covenant,'^ which seems to have
been similar to that formed by the Plymouth Pilgrims, at
Cape Cod, and by which 9ome provision was made for a
temporary government. On the fourth of June, 1639, a
little more than thirteen months after their arrival, all the
free planters of the town assembled to lay with all solemni-
ty the foundations both of their ecclesiastical order and of
their civil state. After prayer, and after many earnest ex-
hortations to remember the weight of the business about
which they were assembled, and after free, diligent and
careful debate, it was agreed without a contradicting voice,
that ^' the power of ^ansacting all the public civil affairs of
this plantation," should be in the hands of those only
whose fitness for such a trust should be shown by their
being members of the church which they bad come hither
to establish, and which was the one great end for which
they left all that was pleasant in their native land, and en-
countered all that was terrible in a wilderness. Twelve

16

men were then chosen to select seven among themselves
who might stand as the seven pillars in the house of wis-
dom. These seven were to act as trustees for the nascent
commonwealth. They were to be the beginning of the
church and of the state. From this convention in the
bam, which with all its errors, recognized the great truth
of the sovereignty of the people — ^from the government
thus established, which had whatever of legitimacy can
arise from an express social compact, and which claimed
no power that had not been deliberately, and solemnly, and
most clearly granted by the whole body of free planters,
began the jurisdiction of New Haven colony. Under this
arrangement, Theophilus Eaton was chosen chief ruler for
the first year, with the simple title of "magistrate," and
with " four deputies" to assist him in his duties. It was not
till 1643 that the several distinct plantations were confede-
rated into one jurisdiction; and then appears upon the
record a written constitution or frame of government, con-
sisting of "certain fundamental orders" which all had
agreed upon, and which were never to be called in ques-
tion. This constitution differs from that adopted at Hart-
ford, chiefly in the earnest jealousy with which it guards
the independence of the churches, by insisting on that erro-
neous but honest principle, that none but the members of
the churches should have any power in the affairs of the
civil state. It differed also from the other in being more
elaborate, establishing various courts higher and lower, and
carefully prescribing the powers of each. Like the consti-
tution of Connecticut, it provided for a governor and deputy
governor, with a body of magistrates to be elected by all
the freemen, the magistrates to be nominated beforehand, and
for a legislature or general court, consisting of the governoi^

17

deputy governor^ w4 magialrales a^d two deputies from
each town, to meet at leaet o»ce every year. Under this
constitutioQ, Theophilus Eaton was chosen governor every
year till his deaths which was only a few years before New
Haven ceased to be a separate jurisdiction. Among the
heroic names of that first age of New England history, none
is more venerable than his ; and though Connecticut enrols
him not among those whom she has seated in the chair of
fitate^ no name in that long and honored succession is more
worthy to be commemorated by history, if history performs
her noblest task in exhibiting true manliness to be admired
and imitated.

The settlement of New England took place at a time
when great changes, were obviously impending over the
parent country ; but what was to be the progress of those
changes, and in what they were to result, none could fore*
£ee» A party had arisen in England to whom liberty, an
ample and well fortified liberty, was indispensable, and
of whom some were blindly yearning after, and others were
intelligently devising and manfully endeavoring, a large
and sweeping reform in the structure of society. But
where and how should that reform be realized 1 Some<r>^
the boldest, the most large-hearted, the most enterprizing
and unflinching of their party — the master spirits of that
age, turned their eyes to New England, and after long
deliberation, they determined on leaving behind them all
the antiquated institutions of the old world, the accumula-
tion of ages of darkness and of tyranny, soon to be up-
heaved by the coming earthquake ; and they hoped to
realize under this western sky, the prophet's vision of
'^ new heavens and a new earth, in which dwelleth right-
eousness." Thus the settlements of Massachusetts, Connect-

3 b*

■«

18

icut and New Haven, were succeeuBively founded. Mean-
while the theater, of events in England grew hourly darker
with the progress of oppression, and the approach of civil
convulsion ; and at the very time when the fathers of Cour
necticut were framing their Constitution at Hartford, and the
adventurers at Quinipiac were debating who should be ^' free
burgesses," it was already becoming doubtful whether
either throne or hierarchy were destined to stand long in
Britain; and the question whether the liberties which
prescription and charters had given to Englishmen, should
all be abolished, was soon to be tried upon the field of civil
war. What was more natural than that colonies, founded
at such a time, and framing their institutions to please
themselves, should calculate on independence "i He who
carefully reads the history of New England at that period,
in those records and documents which are the sources of
history, will see that the fathers of these States felt that
they were founding not colonies merely — not dependencies
of a monarch or a parliament — but " States." This was
especially true of Connecticut and New Haven, and most
especially of the latter. Accordingly you may read the
records of New Haven, and, if I am correctly informed,
those of Connecticut also, for many of the earliest years,
and find not only no recognition of the English king as
4heir king, but no recognition of the dependence of their
government on that of any parent state or kingdom. * It has
seemed to me that the founders of the New England States
entertained some expectation of drawing to this side of the
Atlantic the strength and bulk of the party to which they
belonged, or, at least, so much of it as would enable them
to maintain their independence. The period of the settle -

* The "oath of fidelity," as used in both jurisdictions, seems d^
signed to exclude the idea of d|j>eiidence.

19

ment of the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut
and New Haven, — that is, from 1628, when Endicott begaii
at Salem, to 1640, was precisely the period when the pros-
pects of reformation and liberty in England were darkest.

Those were the twelve years in which England, under the
counsels of Laud and Strafford, had ceased to be a free

country, except as freedom still lived in a sad remembrance
and a lingering hope. It was then that the ancient English
constitution was virtually abolished; and the realm was
governed not by Acts of Parliament, but by Orders in Coun-
cil, enforced by Star-chamber sentences. During those
twelve years, twenty thousand Puritans emigrated to New
England. But as soon as the change of affairs in the
mother country had brought a Parliament into being, and
there began to be the hope of liberty and reformation at
home, emigration to New England was immediately at a
stand. And when great and astounding events began to
succeed each other with portentous rapidity, Strafford in
the grave — Laud in the Tower — the King in arms against
his people, and all things gave promise of becoming
new in England, the current of migration turned> the
other way ; and year by year, these colonies sent back ^
the old country many even of the leading spirits of those .
stormy times. Thus Sir Harry Vane went back from
Boston, to lead in Parliament ; Hugh Peters from Salem,
to stir the masses with his fiery eloquence ; Governor
Hopkins from Hartford, to be warden of the fleet, and
commissioner of the admiralty ; Desborough from Guilford,
to be a general in the armies that conquered at Naseby and
at Worcester ; and Hooke from New Haven, to be a chap-
lain at Whitehall to the household of his relative, the
Protector. In such circumstances, it was easy for some

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30

change to take place imperceptibly in the relatione of the
colonies to the parent country. The dominant power in
England was no longer hostile to these colonies. The great
^^ Protector" of England was looked to with confidence to
protect New Haven and Connecticut against the encroach*
ing Dutch at the New Netherlands. New Haven espe-*
cially, where some of the leading men, intimately con-
nected with Cromwell by family alliance, maintained a
correspondence with him, even after he had become in all
but name a sovereign, — ^took some incipient measures
towards obtaining from the English government as then
constituted, a chartered recognition of the rights and con-
stitution of the Colony. Connecticut, however, made no
such attempt ; and all the colonies of New Englaivd,* so
far as they had any dealings with the successive govern-
ments of England during the Commonwealth, appear to
have avoided, with some carefulness, the recognition of any
right in England to legislate over them. In Massachu*
setts especially, the right of Parliament to govern these
colonies was denied as distinctly at that early period, as it
was in the discussions which preceded the Declaration of
independence.

But in the year 1660, an event took place which deeply
involved the relations and prospects of all these colonies.
By a sudden revolution, royalty was restored in England ;
and not royalty alone, but the royal family of the Stuarts.
England, in her infatuation, brought back Charles U. and
placed him on his father's throne, with no stipulation for
liberty or for justice, but such as his treachery, aided by

■» ■»■ ■ »

* Rhode Island is, perhaps, an exception. That colony sought and
obtained a Charter from the Parliament

21

the consummate art and cunning of his ministers, was soon
able to violate without shame or fear. At such a crisis,
what were these New England colonies to do 1 And es-
pecially what were Connecticut and New Haven to do,
who had no charters to show as the warrant of their insti-
tutions — ^nothing but the laws of God and of nature as the
basis of their rights ? For a little while, these impover-
ished and feeble settlements in the wilderness might be
overlooked by hungry courtiers, clamorous for offices and
for lands. But ere long they must expect to attract atten-
tion, and then they must be at the mercy of a reckless
rapacity. Their social compacts, their constitutions and
laws created by themselves, would be of no account in the
courts at Westminster Hall. No man held the land which
he had purchased of the aboriginal proprietors in amicable
treaty, or which he had won from the murdering Pequot in
fierce battle — ^no man held the land which his own labor
had subdued and changed from a pathless forest into a
fruitful field,' — ^by any title which the English laws would
recognize. Their weakness forbade them to defend their
hard-earned possessions with the sword. By a single stroke
of the pen, that king of theirs, in some hour of drunken
generosity, or at the instigation of any of their enemies,
might give away all that they called their own, to a para-
site or a harlot. What had they to do ? Which way
could they turn ?

In that state of things they had no resource but in sub-
mission and in the arts of negotiation. And it may easily
be imagined, that the people of Connecticut acquired their
reputation for policy and craft by the peculiar adroitness of
their conduct at that crisis. Never was a people more
thoroughly and constantly schooled in the vigilance and

22

keeimees, the doublingB and do^inge, the juinings and
couaterminings of diplomacy, thaa was this little republic
from 1660 till the Declaration of Independence.

The governor of Connecticut, at the time of the Rejstora-
tion, was John Winthrop, the illustrious son of the illustri-
ous founder of Massachusetts. His sagacious eye could not
but discern at a glance, ail the perils of the emergency.
His experienced skill in public affairs, perceived in a
moment what line of policy was to he pursued. Undex his
guidance, the legislature, without any loss of time, deter-
mined to apply to the king for a charter which should recog-
nize and establish their rights* In so doing, they acknoW'-
ledged, for the first time, so far as I can learU) their de-
pendence on a king ; and they made professicm of their
allegiance to Charles as their eovereigiu The time had
come when the colonies had no alternative but to acknow^
ledge the king. Even at New Haven the authorities made
Jd. reluctant and ungracious, and therefore ungraceful, pro-
clamation of King Cb^rles^* Yet the people of Conneot-
cut, in taking meajsures to obtain a royal charter, proceeded
not as individuals, but as a community already organized.
Their agent was their governor. Their petiti<m to the
king was nothing less than the ^^ Petition of Th^ Gsne&ai^
Court at Hartford upon the Connecticut in New England ;'^
and as the authentic and official act of the Court, it wa^

* The proclamation at New Haven was in these words : " Although
we have not received any form of proclamation, by order from his
majesty, or council of state, for proclaiming his majesty in this Colony;
yet the Court, taking encouragement from what has been done in the
United Colonies ; hath thought fit to declare publicly, and proclaim^
that we do acknowledge his Royal Highness, Charlee the Second,
King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, to be our sovereign
lord and King; and that we do acknowledge ourselves, the inhabit-
ants of this Colony, to be his majesty's loyal and faithful subjects.*'

1 •

23

fiigned by their setretary. They asked for a charter which
should recognize and legalize the rights and jurisdicttonf
which they were already exercising. Singularly fortunate
in the agent* whom they had appointed to this negotiation,
and no less fortunate in the opportunity which their dis-^
eeming promptitude had seized, they obtained from the
heedless good natuce of the king, a charter which estab-
fished, under all the forms of British law, the complete
democracy which their own voluntary compact had created.
Under that charter, the towns of the New Haven jurisdic-
tion, though at first exceedingly reluctant to give up their
separate polity, were gradually compelled, by the pressure
of danger from England, to become one Commonwealth
with their neighbors upon the river.

Thus, in the good providence of our fathers' God, Con-
necticut has endured for more than two centuries a free!
State. For two hundred years, republican institutions
have been operating to form the character and to control
the destiny of our people. And though for a while after
the adoption of the ishtfrter, the feeling of joy and of grati-
tude for that legal palladium of liberty, made the colony
of Connecticut a somewhat loyal colony, especially after
the revolution of 1688 in the parent country ; the un-
mixed republicanism of that old constitution which the

* It is somewhat remarkable, that in the perplexity of finding names
for new towns and villages in Connecticut, the name of Winthrop
has never occurred to the parties concerned as the name of a great
public benefactor, worthy of perpetual commemoration. Groton is the
name of the seat of the Winthrop family in England, but Winthrop
surely would be as becoming a name for a Connecticut town as Can-
ion^ or Berlin^ or even Clinton^ or Monroe. It is hardly less remark-
able, that in Hartford and New Haven, not a square nor a street, nor'
an alley, — not an institution nor an edifice, nor any monument save a
tombstone, keeps up the names of ^a^ne^ or o^EtUfin,

-L .

24

charter embodied and preserved, as it controlled the legis*
lation of the State, controlled also the political habits and
sentiments of its citizens. Thus the history of Connecticut
is, from the beginning, one story^lrtill in progress, the story
of a free people, under free institutions. Their institutions
were constantly in danger ; once for a few months all their
liberties were wrested from them by the hs^nd of power.
But their constant dangers, their brief experience of what it
was to be ruled by a representative of royalty, and tteir
habitual observation of the less privileged condition of
neighboring colonies, made them alert and jealous for their
liberty, and taught them to " snuif oppression in the tainted
breeze." Thus when the era of the revolution came, and
the old allegiance due to the British throne was renounced
and abolished,, there was no revolution in Connecticut, no
rising of the people against the laws or the existing author-
ities;* but THE State — the same State which in 1639 had
formed its first organic law in a full assembly of its people,
went as a State in full array, with aa unparalleled unanim-
ity, into the foDefront of the battle for independency and
for continental freedom.

* The only visible public flymbole or monumente of royalty in Con-
necticut, at the date of the revolution, so far as I am informed, were
the king's arms in Yale College, (sent over by Governor Yale, with
the portrait of George I.) a cannon over the cupola of the State-house
in New Haven, and another on the spire of Ae Episcojj^l church in
the same townu The picture of the king's arms, in college, was cast
down and dishonored by some patriotic hand, as soon as independence
was declared; but the two crowns, lees significant, retained their
places, unconscious of change. The first disappeared, when the
State-house was repaired in 1807 ; and the lafit, when the old church
was taken down in 18 17. Connecticut may be searched with candles,
and except in our public records from 1660 to 1776, no distinct trac«^
of a king, or of a king's authority, will be foutd within her limits

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